The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1887-04-27
A CASE OF LEPRoSY.
A Young Man Who Caught the Dread Dis
ease In Honolulu.

louisville POST
In the preambulations of a reporter in
the east end of the city a real live leper was
found. In the rear of an uptown drug
store, where it is the newsman's wont to
stop in his hunt for items, he saw sitting on
q bench a quiet-looking man, with no
marks of disease upon his face or hands.
His eyes are gray and have healthy flash
about them, and the man himself seemed
full Of energy and vital force. The reporter,
thinking he saw an ordinary in
dividual before him, took a seat on the
same bench, with not six inches of space
intervening between him and the stranger.
Without any show of secrecy or ado the
druggist remarked that the man was a
leperl Now, from all traditions, biblical
and otherwise, the scribe had been imbued
from childhood with the belief that to
breathe the atmosphere near the victim of
such a disease is contagious, and to touch
him is inevitable death. A leper! and in
six inches of him. The newsman trembled
and SHE'D nervously from such dangerous
proximity. The leper took these signs of
fear on the part of the reporter with
humorous relish. He rolled up his pants
legs and disclosed his bare flesh, which was
covered thickly with dry sores as big as
quarters and as round.
The name of the leper is John Hastings,
and he lives, he said, on Wilson street,
near the edge of town. For three years he
has been a victim 10 his terrible malady.
Several years ago he went 10 the Paci
coast, and from there shipped as a sailor on
a sailing vessel bound on trading cruise
to the Sandwich Islands The ship touched
at Honolulu, AID the sailors, on their holi-
days and of nights spent on the shore en-
joyed themselves, ss is their custom, in all
kinds of pleasure and license. They min
gled with the kaDskas, danced ar their
II
part in all their diversions. For three
months the vessel lay in port, and
at every opportunity the sailors in
dulged their bent for such fun. In this
promiscuous mixing with the inhabitants,
Tasting contracted the leprosy. 1t showed
its appearance upon him by running sores
breaking out over his body. He was hor-
rified when he knew he had caught it, but,
well knowing that no vessel would ever
bring him back to this country If II trans
pired that he was a leper, he guarded his
secret carefully in his own diseased bosom,
nor let his closest friend know Of it. He
saw the way in which lepers Jared in the
| islands, and his caution was doubled.
There, he told the reporter, the diseased
victims are driven from the habitations Of
men to haunt in the caves and rocks, or
| far in the forests. The banished lepers
have built villages of novels in order to be
| together, and there drag out their lives in
| filth and soualor.
1t was a saving clause in Hastings ro-
nance, that the disease failed 10 break out
on his face or hands, and he was thereby
able to ship on a return passage to this
country. He says that in Chicago he slept
with two men, and that in the morning
| one got on some of his clothes by mistake
and was inflicted with the loathsome dis
ease Since coming here he has kept his
secret from his family, and though he has
been here two years, his mother is unaware
that he is suffering from the disease. A
well.k known doctor is experimenting on him
and be claims that he is getting better. He
appears robust and is able to work 1T his
trade, which Is brickmaking